April Hikari
April Hikari, known as Shigatsu Hikari in the Japanese version, is another strong female duelist from the Obelisk Blue dormitory at Duel Academy, as well as one of Jaden’s closest friends and also is his very first love interest. Etymology It is revealed that April was born on the 1st day of April, which have some serious consetations. April was named is not only is the name of the forth month if the year, it is also associated with spring. In Latin, it is the word “to open” or “to open to the sun”. Hence its association with growth, renewal and blooming bulbs of spring flowers. Character Design April’s usual outfit consists of the standard female Obelisk Blue uniform, complete with an optional pair of fingerless gloves. Her Obelisk Blue coat is opened, much like the way Jaden wears his Slifer Red coat, however, in episode 1, her clothes hes consists her Domino Girls High School uniform, consist of a blue coat, a white oxford shirt, a red tie and red pleated shirt with black stockings and red shoes. She carries an Academy-issued Duel Disk on her left arm. During her senior year, she carries a Duel Disk with Blue trim presenting the female form on her left arm. Character Biography April Hikari, along with Alexis Rhodes, Zane Truesdale and Chazz Princeton, is one of the top students at the Academy. Like Alexis, April always was the top student in her classes and known to get good grades and was immediately called “The Rose of Obelisk Blue” when first arrived at Duel Academy. Everyone in the school liked her as a superior student. However, she does not regard herself as better than others. April had a past when she was small, she was able to see Duel Spirits just like Jaden and Chazz. Her Duel Spirit was “White Petit Kitten”. Regarded as the “rose” of Obelisk Blue. She got that nickname because she has a cute appearance, but she is really dangerous in duels, like the old saying “careful with roses, they always have thorns”. It is shown in the anime that Jaden has a crush on her and sometimes gets a little jealous of Jesse Anderson. Not much is known as her past, but she said that she used to see Duel Spirits when she was small, the Duel Spirit was called “White Petit Kitten” as April got older, her ability to see Duel Spirits faded. Also there was rumours saying that April’s parents were Yugi Mutou and June Pearl (who are 10 years older) and that “Hikari” is her middle name but there’s no proof of that (yet). Plus she has been friends with Alexis and Atticus Rhodes since they were small. Also the fact Yugi would have to bang June at a really young age. Season 1 She was mostly seen with Alexis, showing they are best friends. When Jaden, Syrus and Chumley Huffington go to investigate the Abandoned Dorm at Duel Academy, they meet April there searching for one of her best friends, Atticus. April enters the dorm by herself but gets kidnapped by Crowler's hired mercenary, Titan. In the dub, he claims he sent her to the Shadow Realm. Jaden wins and frees April. He also offers her his help in finding Atticus, but he leaves before she replies. After this event, Crowler threatens to expel Jaden and Syrus for visiting the abandoned dorm unless they can beat two extremely difficult duel opponents (the Paradox Brothers) in a tag duel. April offers to take Syrus' place because she was there as well and Syrus has little confidence in his dueling skills, but it is refused. She still aids Jaden and Alexis in preparing Syrus for the Tag Duel, and trying to help him believe in himself. April soon begins to become good friends with Jaden and Syrus after they win the tag duel. She begins to accompany them on occasion during their adventures. When Chancellor Sheppard reveals the Shadow Riders' plot to take over the world using the eight Spirit Keys, April is one of the chosen to hold the Spirit Keys along with Alexis, Jaden, Dr. Crowler, Professor Banner, Zane Truesdale, Bastion Misawa, Chummley and Chazz. Along with the other spirit key keepers except Jaden, April loses her duel against the final Shadow Rider, Amnael. As a consequence, she is sent to an alternate dimension along with the others who lost where she remains unconscious. Jaden manages to free them by finally defeating Amnael, returning them to Earth. Season 2 At the start of the second year. April moves into a spare room along with Alexis in the Slifer Red dormitory to escape from Vellian Crowler, who was pestering her to begin a career as a duelist that sings during duels, just he try to do with Alexis. Following Alexis’ entrance into the Society of Light, April duels her to set her friend free from the Society’s control. She fails, however, and meets up the same fate as her fellow elites. Although she remains brainwashed by Sartorius for the majority of season two, she finally begins to show some resistance by refusing to play the "White Veil" card given to her by Sartorius during her duel against a unknown pro Duelist in the Genex Tournament. During that duel, Chazz, Syrus and Jaden (who are watching) also point out that she is standing up for Obelisk Blues despite that she was now under Sartorious' control in the Society of Light, perhaps suggesting she was trying to break free. Plus everytime she sees Jaden, her memories of him vaguely began to come back to her. Additionally, she vaguely begins to remember the times when she and Jaden were close friends when Sartorius orders her to duel Jaden for his satellite key. However, Sartorius notices this and thus strips Alexis of her mind completely, rendering her a lifeless and empty puppet. Sartorius would subsequently strip April of her free will completely, rendering her cold and heartless. Providing her with a new White Dark deck, he orders her to take Alexis’ place to beat Jaden and achieved the mind control satellite of Misgrath. Jaden still manages to win which restores her mind back to normal. Upon being returned, she has no memory of ever entering the Society of Light or being brainwashed but notices that she and Jaden were in a duel. She asks Jaden who won, and Jaden lies saying she did, most likely because Jaden felt bad for her after all she had been through. Season 3 During season three, April accompanies Alexis, Jaden, Syrus, Axel Brodie, Jim Crocodile Cook, Jesse Anderson and Hassleberry in solving the mystery behind the new professor, Viper's, new bio bands that appear to be sucking the energy from dueling students. When Viper finally collects enough energy to transport Duel Academy to a different dimension, she aids Jaden, Axel, Bastion, Jim, Jesse and Hassleberry in fending off the rest of the school, who have been transformed by Yubel into Duel Ghouls. It is revealed April revealed when she was small, she was able to see Duel Spirits just like Jaden and Chazz. The Duel Spirit is mostly seen was “White Petit Kitten”. All of sudden, her ability to see Duel Spirits had slowly began to came back. She protected the school with Blair Flannigan and Marcel from the Duel Ghouls till she was attacked by Yubel while protecting Blair and and comes down with a mysterious illness. Jaden, Jesse, Axel, Jim, and Adrian get medicine from a submarine that Bastion saw. She gets healed by this medicine soon after. Yubel is eventually driven from Marcel and the school returned to Duel Academy Island but Jesse was left behind. April, along with Alexis, Atticus, Jaden, Chazz, Bastion, Jim, Axel, Hassleberry and Syrus in finding him by going through a dimensional warp, but are transported to a different dimension than before this time. Jaden desperately searches for Jesse after arriving, regardless of the village elder whom they meet's warning not to search at night but to wait for day, as night is when the evil duel monster spirits strike. The others feel it is their responsibility as a team to follow him as well. However, Jaden becomes so obsessed with finding Jesse that he doesn't notice when April, Alexis, Atticus, Chazz and Hassleberry all fall behind. The four begin to think that Jaden doesn't care about them anymore and decide not to follow. They are eventually captured by Brron, Mad King of Dark World, and sacrificed by him to create the "Super Polymerization" card. Before April is sacrificed, she sadly says "I thought we were friends. Guess not. It's sad to know that..." Her sacrifice meant that Brron was able to successfully complete Super Polymerization, but Jaden snapped and proceeded to go on the offensive, using his "Elemental HERO" "Neo Spacian", and "Evil HERO" cards to beat down Brron until the Mad King was killed by "Flame Wingman"'s effect.After his defeat, Brron mocked Jaden by saying that he would never see his friends again before dying, before Jaden drove his shoe through Brron's head. Jaden then picks up "Super Polymerization", and in his mind, he was holding the card as pictures of his friends in the mirrors disappeared one after another. The spirit of the Supreme King then appeared in his mind and convinced him that he must defeat evil by becoming evil and rule with power in that cruel world of deceit. The Supreme King told him that the required power is this card, which Jaden must complete by defeating and sacrificing the opposing spirits. At that moment, the King took control over Jaden. It's later discovered by Bastion that they are not dead, but simply transported to an alternate, lifeless and cold dimension. Jaden would still be able to rescue them if he defeats Yubel in a duel. Jaden instead decides to make up for all the wrongs he did, to Yubel and his friends, by fusing his spirit with Yubel's so they could be together again. This consequently restored the dimensions' balance to normal, freeing his friends. Season 4 By the start of the fourth season, April has moved back to Obelisk Blue and is in her final year at the academy, considering that she’s going to a Duel Collage in her hometown to continue her studies. In this season, April's affections toward Jaden are starting to reveal. April finds Jaden' s new and more serious personality to be troubling and alienated. April started to doubt that Jaden will ever come as time goes by, and also that things will ever be right between them again. In general, April and Jaden's friendship seems to have grown apart in season four, April starts to leave when Jaden appears on a scene like they had an argument and April wasn't talking to Jaden. But Jaden always tried to make April stay in the scene and asked her what's wrong, she wouldn't she just walked away, leaving Jaden behind. Jaden starts to worry about April. At the Duel Academy party, Hassleberry pairs them as a tag duel for the tag duel tournament assuming they chose each other. April was very concerned about due to his recent change of attitude. During the final tag duel against Blair and Hassleberry. It is shown that Jaden and April were dueling great together but Blair can tell something's up with April. Blaire was about to play "Partner Change" but April plays "Card Destruction" destroy Partner Change and Jaden compliments April. April uses Jaden and her cards combined to win the tag duel. Afterwards, Jaden congratulates April for the win, but she didn't say anything, she just looked and walked away with a sad look on her face. Jaden still couldn't figure what's going on with April and wondered that she's ever talked to him again. Later that night, as Jaden was about to return to his dormitory, he sees April alone. Jaden went over to April and they finally had a talk alone. She finally told him why she wasn't talking to him, she said that he acting like himself ever since what happened in the alternate dimension and she was worried that he wasn't the same. She felt relived and happy when she sees that he is apparently acting like himself again, and simply says “I’m glad that I have meet you”. Then Jaden nervously went across towards April and firmly hold her hand, showing his crush is still there. After that, April and Jaden became friends again and closer then ever. When the Trueman copies invade Duel Academy, April and the other students try to fight them off. However, she is bested by the copies and Darkness takes. However, somehow, she wasn’t absorbed into darkness, and was released with everyone else thanks to Jaden who dueled and defeated Nightshroud. At the Graduation Ceremony, she gave a heartwarming speech at Graduation about how no matter how tough something is, we can always overcome it with friends by our side. During the party, she, Jesse and Axel have a conversation outside, confident that they will see Jaden again. She and the others knew that Jaden was probably going to leave, so they all wrote a note for him in his bag. Her piece says, “I’ll miss you, hope we’ll meet again someday.” MISSING PIECE Manga April’s manga-counterpart is very much the same as her anime counterpart in terms of ranking, strength, and motivation. She longs to be viewed as a duelist by her fellow peers, rather than simply a female. She Duels Alexis in the finals of the "Miss Duel Academia" contest, and ties with her, so Alexis duels Jaden to get his vote. Alexis loses, but April quits. She also participates in the tournament hosted at Duel Academy, but loses very quickly to Alexis and Bastion, and later, she is drained of her energy by Jessie. Relationships Many knew that April has two crushes: Jaden and Jesse. In the Japanese version April does not entertain romantic interest towards anyone else. But in season 4, it is revealed that in season 4, April began to have strong feelings for Jaden. In the dub, April's affections toward Jaden can be traced as early on. Her dorm mate, Lilli wondered if April was "falling for that Slifer", the "Slifer" being referred to as Jaden. April consistently will respond to another female showing interest in Jaden. The notion is furthered when Jaden and Syrus duel the Paradox Brothers. April tells Bastion that she "is happy that Jaden gets to stay at the Academy." Bastion corrects her by assuming that she meant Jaden and Syrus, and presumably figures out that April has a crush on Jaden when April tries to change the subject. A similar situation also ensues when Annie, Alexis' good friend and roommate, exclaims that she would never let a Slifer Red stay on campus. In Episode 15, things take a turn when Harrington challenges Jaden to a duel with the prize of being April’s' fiancée. Despite Jaden winning the duel, his naiveté allows April to downplay the role to one of friendship in the English version, stating, "...it means friend, at least for now, big guy."; in the Japanese version, April instead calls Judai an idiot for not knowing the definition of the word "fiancée" at all. While she is controlled by Sartorius she shows a great deal of dislike for Jaden referring to him as a "dork" and "loser" multiple times. In the manga, April doesn't display any particular romantic feelings for anyone, but is the object of Syrus' affections. Throughout the manga, Syrus shows a lot of interest in April, becoming extremely fidgety and often nervous when she is around. He is noted as being shy with April, and lacks the courage to ask her for her cell phone number. April is also possibly more flirtatious in the manga, since Syrus Truesdale is quoted as calling her a "siren." April also has a minor rivalry with Alexis Rhodes, since the two are participants for the "Miss Duel Academia" contest, and later, the Duel Academia Tournament. Deck April plays a White Magician Deck composed of cards based on the idea of heaven, angels and light. Her tactics are well balanced due to the variety of different effects her monsters posses, ranging from early and devastating direct effects to negation of opposing card abilities. She is also skilled at concentrating on a single tactic while dueling, devoting all her cards to summing and strengthen of her fused magician Dragon Magician, or summing Ritual magician like Sorceress of Light Magic, Magician of White Chaos and Light Magician (based on heaven and light mythology). As a member of Society of Light, April plays a White Dark Deck, creating a physical dark and cold in the dueling ring which prevents her opponents from using Spell and Trap Cards using monsters like White Dark Dragon and White Dark Sorceress. She also uses Tokens as both Tribute Cost and protection. In the manga, April plays the same deck in the anime. Category:Characters